Blackfeet language is now taught in our tribal college. Mike Swims under gave his spiritual bundles back to the river before he died because he had no one to give them too. No one attended his cerimonial events for quite some time. I have heard from our tribal website that there are now a growing return to the old ways knowledge in the Northern Blackfeet in Canada. Our tribe was split into two. Blackfeet proper went to the Browning, Montana Reservation. That is where our family land is located. We have three tribes that are Blackfeet and societies within each tribe, the Blackfeet proper, the Piegan and the Bloods. The Blackfeet proper live in Montana while the Piegan and the Bloods live in Canada.
There are many forms of education and training in our culture. There is a large body of knowledge that is non-verbal communication. It is a process of normalization and socialization of behaviors that are not spoken about but are expected for you to know. Mothers and Grandmothers instill the non-verbal socialization skills. If you ask questions in public or you ask someone about those behaviors they will deny their existence. However you will still be judged on your ability to act within those non-verbal waypoints.
We had age graded societies. Babies for instance were participated in the Mosquito society. In that society, songs were sung to them, they were treated in certain ways that exist only in the Mosquito society. When you grow up, it was well established that you would go to one society to the next to get your training. This was destroyed with predjudice by the US Government. Knowledge and practices in our traditional life style became more and more difficult to find. In an oral tradition, when someone dies without handing down their knowledge, the knowledge dies with them. This was how the US Government designed our cultural extinction. As far as I know there are only few of the original societies left. The last sun dance on the Southern Blackfeet reservation occured in the early 60's. If I could have found someone to learn from as a young man, I would have never been available for Nahualism a few years after searching for my tribal knowledge.
Our last paragon of knowledge is the Chief of the Northern Blackfeet. He is very old and has had a heart attack and is constant care. He is spending his extremely valuable final years teaching and training. Now there is no shortage of Blackfeet desiring to learn the Old Knowledge. We also have very specific ways of introduction that has a lot to do with our order of respect and purpose. You would have to go the Reservation in Canada and explain your purpose and intent at the tribal office or maybe the tribal college and they would decide if your purpose has merit and I suggest that you learn our non-verbal ways of showing respect before you take that journey.
I made repeated journeys with my grandmother to our relations back home attempting to serve our traditional teachings of our tribe. There were so few knowledgeable people that could or would teach our tribal knowledge that my search was fruitless. I spent a great deal of time with a Lakota Spiritual leader and attended his cerimonies and he taught me his ways. He knew I was Blackfeet which has a similar culture but I did not feel at home even though I respected him greatly.
[Barnaby's note] Much waffle removed. If you want to
advertise, sorry, I mean drop mysterious hints about how super-secret and ancient and powerful your cult is, do it elsewhere.
To Educated_Indian the other point, I stated that Apocalypto authentically represented the existence of the twin relationships of Chac Mool and Gucumatz correctly intentioned to mean as standing an iconographic picture of chac mool and and iconographic picture of Gucumatz representing the two spiritual forces of the Mayan/Toltec at the late postclassic period of the Maya. I said that Apocalypto misrepresented the belief system. Mel Gibson incorrectly depicted the twin iconographies of Chac Mool and Gucumatz with a complete lack of piety and demeanor. I hope this allows you to understand what I meant more clearly. I was not happy either about the representation. I have mentioned my unhappiness before on other sites.
I will state again. I do not ever talk of our practices nor our methods nor our cerimonies and definately not the names of our elders. Our cosmology I talk about frequently. I do not describe specific facts of our history. I share exactly within the boundaries that my mandate dictates. I have asked of you a simple thing, keep my identity private because I came to you open with my identity.
Our tradition has a private forum. We do not advertise. We do not seek profit. We are shielded in a non-profit corporation now by design. We do not publicly describe our practices, cerimonies nor our prayers. The newest participant is with us for 12 years. We have near the exact number we are required to have to fulfill our tradition.
Everything I have shared has been with tacit approval of the only ones I am obligated to serve and please regarding our secrets and I have not betrayed our secrets. Our basic beliefs are contained in 13 volumes that I have writen that still do not contain our practices and methods those have to be taught one on one. The 13 volumes I have writen, I have done so with approval. They will never be published for public consumption yet I have spent the last 10 years writing them. They will be the intellectual property of the non-profit corporation. We want the educational part of our tradition to follow good scholastic guidelines that is why I contacted you. Not as a participant in our tradition but as a Native America educator that could judge a proper syllabus and teaching methodology. We have to face these issues and serve the best interests of our tradition and students. I believed you would provide us with a rigorous threshold in which to operate a teaching environment. Those were my thoughts on approaching you. If you feel there was any other motive, then I would say our communication was insufficient.
When I was young I spent time in some Lakota led Native American groups. Two names in your frauds list I had encountered while serving in those Lakota led Native American organizations. It upset me that you had two bonafide Native American spiritual people in your frauds board. It still upsets me.
In the movie "Apocalypto" the traditions that were exemplified in the city are a Toltec inspired pairing of two traditions of Quetzal Coatl and Tlaloc. The Mayan post classical resurgence in pyramid building is directly attributed to the Toltec who themselves were refugees from the North Central part of Mexico. The main capital of Tula was destroyed by war. The traditions were improperly and controversially presented in an impious and cynical way in the movie Apocalypto.
